2.21.2005
a book a week: the talented mr. ripley
token description: patricia highsmith's the talented mr. ripley concerns a young opportunist who leaves new york city (and relative financial squalor) for italy, in hopes of bringing trust-fund-playboy dickie greenleaf home to his father. upon arrival, he develops a peculiar friendship with dickie, which eventually goes sour. upon putting together that dickie and his almost-girlfriend marge are hinting that he should return home, ripley murders dickie and assumes his identity.
there is much to say about the homoerotic sub-text that may/may not pervade this narrative (as well as how the film adaptations draw attention to/away from it by creating an erotic chemistry between ripley and marge-- which is absent in the book). but i think most of it has been said before, and said by people with a deeper understanding of it than me. what I’d like to draw attention to, however, is how the book deals with etiquette...
ripley's pathological desire to abandon his own identity strikes me as an inversion of the conventional "interior dialogue." whereas most books-- even books dealing with murderers-- attempt to unveil layers of social performance to reveal the desire beneath, highsmith's ripley moves in the opposite direction. ripley is dedicated to the surfaces of things with a dutiful intensity. it's as if he would like to eradicate his own complexity and exist exclusively in the realm of high-brow formalities. throughout the book, he constantly evades any sort of existential reflection (this is where the book's often-discussed amorality comes into play), and when he acts, he does so without a trace of introspection, let alone ethical objection. he goes so far as to resent his own need for murder, in the case of dickie's friend freddie miles– whom ripley is forced to kill when things begin to go awry. this act strikes him as messy and gratuitous. ripley objects to his own actions as an assault on good taste, rather than according to some quasi-biblical code of action.
tellingly, there is less emphasis on this in the films (1999's film of the same name, and also 1960's purple noon). i believe this is because it is often such etiquette that enables sadistic activity to go culturally unnoticed. highsmith exaggerates the artillery of superficial gestures enabling a play for power, and ripley is the result. through an infinite array of costumes and impersonations, ripley acts out a compulsive need to remind himself of his own sovereignty. i see this shit every day at work... when a customer asks me a question that is, in reality, an excuse to make a spectacle of their own intelligence. my absolute favorite example: a guy picks up a coffee mug pertaining to the museum's "manet and the sea" exhibition and, with a look on his face of EXTREME self-satisfaction, asks me "if anyone is aware that they spelled 'monet' wrong?". it's this kind of compulsory ego-display that weaves the fabric of privilege and wealth, far more often than the showboating hyperboles we've come to expect from villians in novels.
there is much to say about the homoerotic sub-text that may/may not pervade this narrative (as well as how the film adaptations draw attention to/away from it by creating an erotic chemistry between ripley and marge-- which is absent in the book). but i think most of it has been said before, and said by people with a deeper understanding of it than me. what I’d like to draw attention to, however, is how the book deals with etiquette...
ripley's pathological desire to abandon his own identity strikes me as an inversion of the conventional "interior dialogue." whereas most books-- even books dealing with murderers-- attempt to unveil layers of social performance to reveal the desire beneath, highsmith's ripley moves in the opposite direction. ripley is dedicated to the surfaces of things with a dutiful intensity. it's as if he would like to eradicate his own complexity and exist exclusively in the realm of high-brow formalities. throughout the book, he constantly evades any sort of existential reflection (this is where the book's often-discussed amorality comes into play), and when he acts, he does so without a trace of introspection, let alone ethical objection. he goes so far as to resent his own need for murder, in the case of dickie's friend freddie miles– whom ripley is forced to kill when things begin to go awry. this act strikes him as messy and gratuitous. ripley objects to his own actions as an assault on good taste, rather than according to some quasi-biblical code of action.
tellingly, there is less emphasis on this in the films (1999's film of the same name, and also 1960's purple noon). i believe this is because it is often such etiquette that enables sadistic activity to go culturally unnoticed. highsmith exaggerates the artillery of superficial gestures enabling a play for power, and ripley is the result. through an infinite array of costumes and impersonations, ripley acts out a compulsive need to remind himself of his own sovereignty. i see this shit every day at work... when a customer asks me a question that is, in reality, an excuse to make a spectacle of their own intelligence. my absolute favorite example: a guy picks up a coffee mug pertaining to the museum's "manet and the sea" exhibition and, with a look on his face of EXTREME self-satisfaction, asks me "if anyone is aware that they spelled 'monet' wrong?". it's this kind of compulsory ego-display that weaves the fabric of privilege and wealth, far more often than the showboating hyperboles we've come to expect from villians in novels.
